'Godfather of spam' jailed for four years

An internet fraudster who dubbed himself the "Godfather of spam" has
been jailed for more than four years over a conspiracy that involved sending
billions of illegal email advertisements a day.

Alan RalskyPhoto: AP

By Tom Leonard in New York

4:37PM GMT 25 Nov 2009

Alan Ralsky, 64, admitted committing mail and wire fraud as well as violating the CAN-SPAM Act, a US law introduced in 2003 which makes it a criminal offence to send large, commercial email messages using an unauthorised computer or while trying to hide the email's source.

Prosecutors in Detroit said that Ralsky and three partners in the scam, including a Hong Kong businessman, sent billions of emails to inflate the price of Chinese penny shares between January 2004 and September 2005.

Using a so-called "botnet" network of infected computers to send the emails, the ruse was designed to cause a brief spike in the shares' price from which the conspirators reaped a profit.

Ralsky has been one of the world's most prolific spammers, or senders of junk email, since 1997. Before the Bush administration passed the CAN-SPAM law to tackle growing internet fraud, he was reportedly sending 70 million messages a day under false names.

The Michigan man turned to spamming when he lost his licence to sell insurance and always insisted he ran a legitimate business.

Unlike other spammers he was happy to talk to the media about his activities, but the ploy backfired in 2002 when his address was posted on the internet. Hundreds of people signed him up for advertising mailing lists and free catalogues, prompting him to complain of harassment.

A federal judge has jailed him for 51 months as well as imposing five years' probation and ordering that he forfeit $250,000 that was seized by investigators in 2007.

How Wai John Hui, a Hong Kong resident who as chief executive of China World Trade represented the companies whose shares were being promoted, received the same prison and probation terms.

Emphasising the government's hope that the sentences will deter other spammers, US Attorney Terrence Berg said the court had "made it clear that advancing fraud through the abuse of the internet will lead to several years in prison".

The US government, which launched a three-year FBI investigation into the conspiracy, had originally asked for Ralsky to be jailed for more than seven years but lowered their recommendation after he co-operated.

Steven Fishman, Ralsky's lawyer, described his sentence as "excessive".